Tea partiers air doubts about Armey

It seemed a strange fit to begin with — a former House Republican leader turned $750,000-a-year Washington lobbyist who resurfaced as perhaps the single most identifiable leader of a populist, anti-Washington movement.

And in recent weeks, Dick Armey has found himself targeted by a quiet, but concerted campaign from fellow conservatives challenging — and seeking to undermine — his status as a leader of the tea party movement.

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Critics ranging from prominent conservatives to bloggers to grass-roots tea party activists have called into question whether Armey’s stances on illegal immigration and social issues, his candidate endorsements and his past lobbying work are fundamentally inconsistent with the tea party movement. They also have suggested he raised the white flag too early in the fight over the Democratic health care overhaul and is beholden to corporate benefactors, and have accused him of trying to hijack the tea parties to serve those benefactors or his own personal political ambitions.

To be sure, some of the resentment seems to stem from jealousy over adept positioning by Armey that has put him and the small-government nonprofit group he co-chairs, FreedomWorks, at the vanguard of tea party activism, which everyone on the right — from the Republican Party and its elected officials to the groups that emerged from the 1960s restructuring of the conservative movement — has jockeyed to harness.

But the attacks on Armey, which started as a whisper campaign and have spilled out into the open in the past couple weeks, also highlight deeper tensions within the loose confederation of local and state groups that make up the tea party, as well as the broader conservative movement, about whether there is any need for national leaders, and whether social and national security issues should be part of the agenda.

By positioning himself in a leadership role in the tea party movement, Armey, his critics argue, has exerted an inordinate influence in molding the movement — or, at least, the public perception of it — to his vision, which focuses on limited government and taxation more than the social, immigration and national security issues that motivate other conservatives.

“Dick Armey of FreedomWorks (The group trying to take control of the tea party movement) supports AMNESTY for illegal aliens,” charged an e-mail that circulated widely in tea party circles this month from ALIPAC, a political action committee supporting mostly Republican candidates who advocate tighter immigration restrictions. “Does this explain why the D.C. insiders are trying to keep the illegal immigration issue out of the tea party movement?”